The MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology offers a two-year postdoctoral fellowship; the recipient will collaborate with MIT faculty and invited guests on the production of an international symposium scheduled for September, 2014, and subsequent publication of the proceedings. Additional duties of the CAST Fellow may include development and teaching of cross-disciplinary courses or workshops, or supervision of undergraduate research opportunities (UROPs) at the intersection of the arts, science and/or technology.

Young scholars from any relevant field will be considered, but a demonstrated interest in working beyond one discipline is essential and administrative experience and capabilities are required. Disciplines likely to yield competitive candidates may include (but are not limited to) history of science, philosophy, art history, cultural studies, anthropology, musicology, or performance history.

About CAST

The MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) was established in 2012 to facilitate opportunities for exchange and collaboration among artists, engineers, humanists and scientists. A joint initiative of the Office of the Provost, the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), the Center is committed to fostering a culture where the arts, science and technology thrive as interrelated, mutually informing modes of exploration, knowledge and discovery.

Art, science, and technology are ways of knowing and changing the world. These disciplines frequently draw from each other yet their devoted practitioners rarely have the opportunity for high-level intellectual and cultural exchange. The planned symposium, “Seeing / Sounding / Sensing,” will be an intensive three-day event that will invite creative artists to join philosophers, cognitive neuroscientists, anthropologists, historians, and scholars from a range of disciplines in an open-ended discussion about knowledge production. The goal will be to challenge each domain’s conventional certainty about “what is known,” “how we know it,” or “how we can know more,” and to stimulate new issues for possible cross-disciplinary scholarship in the future.

Terms of Appointment

Appointments will be for two years, effective July 1, 2013; the Fellow will be in residence at MIT during this time. Salary will be $50,000 per year with standard MIT benefits, and each Fellow will receive a research fund of $5,000 to cover travel and other costs associated with research and professional development.

Eligibility and Selection

Applicants must have received their Ph.D. no earlier than July 1, 2010 and no later than July 1, 2013. If you have not formally received your degree at the time you apply for the fellowship, please forward certification from your Department Head or the Graduate Studies Office at your institution to confirm that you are expected to earn your Ph.D. prior to July 1, 2013. A Fellow may not hold other appointments during the period of the Fellowship. The CAST Fellow will be announced in April 2013.

Application Materials

Letter describing the applicant’s teaching and research experience and potential contribution to the intellectual project of the symposium and the creative mission of the Center Curriculum vitae One-page description of an undergraduate cross-disciplinary class Three letters of recommendation Application due Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Questions? Questions about the position should be directed to [email protected]. Questions about the application process should be directed to Anya Ventura, 617-321-4291.